I Hate the Scandinavian. How to crush?

@fissionfowl

you have an 88% accuracy rate on rapid, that's exceedingly good, that's higher than Gotham. How much do you study? What books do you recommend

You can't compare it though. They do not have the same opponents. Sure, you will play better moves on average as you get better, but it is not the same to have a good accuracy against an opponent with an average rating of 1 620 and a good accuracy against titled players.

Imagine if one basketball player plays in the NBA and has 36% 3 point shooting, and on the other hand we have someone who plays some business basketball league with colleagues and has the same 3 point shooting percentage. It can't really be compared.

What nklristic said.

@optimissed - I don't know why people feel compelled to tell me that I should play against this opening. I'm never going to have to prepare for it in a tournament, I don't care about my rating, and I play for fun. If my main goal is to have fun and this opening causes me to have the opposite of fun, tell me why I should bother? My opponent gets the win and all is well with the world.

Think about what GM Illingworth is saying. He's saying that people should choose the Scandinavian **because** it's a theoretical wasteland where you don't have to remember anything and you can play it the same almost every time. Perhaps there are minor ways to mix it up, but in my experience the games are all the same. Not fun. Not gonna do it. Why are people so appalled that I won't play a game that I don't like?

It is within your right. I will not dispute that.

In my experience Scandinavian brings out some wild games from time to time, a few times it occurred in my games. The reason is because I probably wish to punish loss of tempi and I either overextend (with long castle and some pawn pushes) or my opponent messes up. I have a lot of equal games for my level (10% draws), and I don't think any of those were in Scandinavian. Especially modern variation tends to be tricky when black sacrifices the pawn for a short while.

For instance Caro Kann is a really solid opening, it can have a similar pawn structure, but my Caro Kann opponents tend to be more timid than my Scandinavian ones.

Advance the e pawn move 2.

Correction: it may not matter so much to under 1700s. You speak as if masters are the only people who know any theory!

They are exactly the reasons you should play against it. If you play for fun and don't care about your rating then simply attack it. Like anyone else would do .... you may find yourself winning. Minor ways to mix it up .... are you joking?

Think about what GM Illingworth is saying. He's saying that people should choose the Scandinavian **because** it's a theoretical wasteland where you don't have to remember anything and you can play it the same almost every time. 

Perhaps he's an idiot? If there's no theory then you have infinite possibilities to construct your own attacks. But he's wrong in any case.

I think familiarity and understanding of the typical positions is the thing that's important for us, not if one side has a theoretical edge out of the opening. That evaluation will likely vary wildly throughout the game anyway at our level.

U might be joking but if white plays 2. e5 then giving up pressure on d5 allows black all kinds of goodies as it relates to rapid development and juicy squares. Starting with 2.... c5 he can increase control over the center & he can target e5 in many ways. If white tries to strengthen e5 with d4 then black just trades with cd & starts slapping whites center around like a red headed step child. White ends up defending a fragile center. 

I've just looked him up. He retired from chess playing to become a coach and writer. That actually does mean his opinion isn't to be trusted. Professional writers often write outrageous things in order to be noticed. And as for coaching, if what he says strikes a chord in some people, it makes him more likely to be employed as a coach because even if only 20% of chess players think that what he says makes sense, at least he'll be on the map and he'll get more work then if he was neutral on the subject, which a more trustworthy mentor and coach would be.

Effectively, you're saying that you won't play against the Scan because it's to0o solid. There's no other way that your reaction may be logically interpreted.

Weak move. The Advance Caro-Kann is actually rather weak for white, as is the Advance French and here black has got that, without making the moves e6 or c6; so black is better after 2. e5.

Advance Caro Kann is weak? Then why is it probably the most played variation by white? Of course, in Scandinavian playing e4 and then e5 makes no sense, except for some shock value.

You're 24xx at Daily.

Yes but Qd8, which was known as the Bronstein variation, is known to be weak. However, it doesn't lose by force and that's the point. Bronstein was one of the very strongest players of his era. He could get away with it, like Carlsen playing the Bongcloud against other GMs in blitz or bullet.

You'd be surprised that it isn't that impressive. Nothing like the skill it would take to get the same rating in other time controls. Here I play a known bad line against a 2300 which gives black a simple route to at least a dead equal position and maybe more. They didn't take it. https://www.chess.com/game/daily/350754267

Daily has ratings all over the place. Some 2 000 rated players in blitz are around 1 500 or 1 600 in daily after hundreds of games. Then there are some people rated 1 200 in rapid that are 1 800 in daily.

I feel it mostly depends on how serious people take those games. Some play 50 at the same time and it probably shows in their rating. All that being said, getting daily rating to 2 400 is really impressive nonetheless.